


Scavenger

by majormaia



Series: 221B Stories [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Abstract, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2012-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-11 09:07:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majormaia/pseuds/majormaia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>It swoops in, this dark-cloaked scavenger, to pick at cadaver and carrion and question.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scavenger

Dead things aren’t really left alone. Even as they seem to be rotting in solitude, they’re not. Remains are searched, and pilfered, and shifted by all sorts of living things. The living move about them and in them and through them, ferrying them along, completing their story.

In this home is a living thing – a living thing, which, according to another creature, would be more useful dead. So the life moves out of this living thing, and it is left alone. But only for a while.

Here lies the dead thing, blue-suited living things buzz around it. They search, and pilfer, and shift until one calls the others away. The dead thing is alone, but only for a moment, before a new living thing replaces the blue-suits.

It swoops in, this dark-cloaked scavenger, to pick at cadaver and carrion and question. It struts, and caws, and thrashes while pecking at meat and bone and puzzle. And now, the dead thing is so very much not alone.

The creature’s eyes see past the deadness, to the thing once living. Its mind moves about, within and through this thing, and then, in a sudden gust and caw, the creature flies away – to ferry the dead thing along, to complete its story.

And alone it goes, this living thing, a detective of a buzzard.

**Author's Note:**

> This was just me playing with words, but it became more difficult than I thought it would. I wanted to depict Sherlock as a kind of vulture-like creature, since he shows up to "scavenge" clues from the dead. I was also dead set on ending with "buzzard." The result is really abstract, but I'm hoping the main gist came across well enough.


End file.
